Good Vibrations Magazine

by Judi B.

I was driving to work last Wednesday, feeling a little giddy that I wasn’t on a packed bus for once, and turned the radio to the local “dance music” station. They were broadcasting live from the Castro (SF’s gay hood) in honor of National Coming Out Day.

I had forgotten all about Coming Out Day (probably because it’s a day after my dad’s birthday!), and turned it up as one of the radio personalities started telling his story of coming out to his brother several years ago on Thanksgiving.

His brother, after some holiday drinking, asked him if “he liked pink.” Of course, the radio guy knew what his brother was trying to ask, and said, yes, he liked pink… and yes, was gay. His brother said he was “okay” with it, even though he didn’t understand it.

A month later, his brother called him, asking him if he wanted to go to the “tittie bar.” His brother never brought up the subject of sexuality again, and still, after years, doesn’t acknowledge the conversation they had that Thanksgiving day.

And that, I say, is tragically sad.

Can you imagine telling someone something so personal, so much about yourself, something about your core being… and then having it swept under the rug? What could be worse? (Well… actually… there are worse things: being kicked out your house, being physically attacked, being ridiculed, being harassed… you get the idea.)

But, silence can be so very damaging as well.

National Coming Out Day began in 1987: The day commemorates October 11, 1987, when 500,000 people marched on Washington, USA, for gay and lesbian equality. National Coming Out Day events are aimed at raising awareness of the LGBT community among the general populace in an effort to give a familiar face to the LGBT rights movement.
source

This year, the theme was “Talk about It”.

And, that’s exactly my point… once someone has “come out”… the conversation can’t stop. I’m not saying that HEY, every conversation you have has to revolve around sexuality! But, if the topic is dropped and ignored, the person who has come out is pushed right back into the closet.

If someone has come out to you, and you stop asking them about their dating/sexual/personal life… it sends a clear message that you don’t see them as a whole person. If you take away someone’s sexuality, you are addressing them as you would a child. And, to an adult, this kind of disrespect and disregard can manifest itself into a great deal personal shame.

Sexuality is inherent. It is deeply engrained. It is attached to everything you are. When one kind of sexuality is called “alternative” and considered a “lifestyle” it’s marked with OTHER and WEIRD and most often times WRONG.

When you’re told (from one group of adults to another) that because of your sexuality you don’t have the same legal rights and that you aren’t fit to be a parent and that you can’t honor your relationship and can’t adopt a child in the foster care system and that you deserved to be beaten up because you were ‘flaunting’ it… something is wrong.

Something is wrong.

This clip from the Human Rights Campaign says it much better than I ever could:
HRC Clip

Now, I understand that I’m not saying anything revolutionary and new here, but sometimes I just think it’s good to reflect. My wish is that one day there will be no “National Coming Out Day” because there’ll be no need to come out. Until then, it reminds me that we have a long, long way to go.

On a final note, this was on my Myspace message board the other day. I tried to find the origin, but couldn’t, so my apologies that there is no credit on it. (If you do know who wrote this, please let me know).

I am a man who lied all his life, because I was too ashamed to be myself. I lied to my friends, my family and the one person I truly ever loved. Now I have lost him forever.

I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag everyday.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don’t believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends I’m a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two “straight” men wanted to “teach me a lesson”.

I am a man who was called a fag all my life and could have been successful. I was too afraid to try because of what people thought about me.